VR/MR/AR 4 Good: Creating with a Purpose

Interested in connecting & joining?

If you’re inter­ested in con­nect­ing to others engaged or inter­ested in the xR4Good field, you could join the xR4Good face­book group, or fill out this online signup sheet and state what you’re inter­ested in

Introduction

Over the past five years, we have seen aware­ness and cre­ation of Virtual, Mixed, and Augmented Reality (VR/MR/AR or, the ‘immer­sive real­i­ties’) explode on a global scale. Researchers/creators have been work­ing hard behind the scenes to make appli­ca­tions and tools that are rel­e­vant to our soci­ety. These indi­vid­u­als come from diverse back­grounds, like com­puter sci­ence, edu­ca­tion, health care, media, art, indus­trial design, social work, human­i­tar­i­an­ism and more. In the past few years, indi­vid­u­als from around the world have rec­og­nized the capa­bil­i­ties that the immer­sive real­i­ties allow and are cre­at­ing appli­ca­tions for the bet­ter­ment of human­ity (Figure 1). A great deal of this momen­tum has come from hard­ware devel­op­ers who would like to see the tech­nol­ogy invented being used for pos­i­tive, good out­comes. Other dri­vers are from human­i­tar­ian and eco­log­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions who see the immer­sive real­i­ties as having a key role in help­ing the agenda at making this world a better place.

The prob­lem remains that in work­ing towards ‘good’ appli­ca­tions, many VR/MR/AR cre­ators and researchers are lack­ing a net­work of like­minded indi­vid­u­als to col­lab­o­rate with. For exam­ple, while researchers may have vast knowl­edge on the cog­ni­tive, psy­cho­log­i­cal, and phys­i­o­log­i­cal ben­e­fits that immer­sive real­i­ties enabled, they may lack the means to develop and appli­ca­tion that use this knowl­edge. On the other side, artists, and design­ers skilled at cre­at­ing graph­ics, ani­ma­tion, and phys­i­cal design may lack the the­o­ret­i­cal and empir­i­cal knowl­edge on how VR/MR/AR works with our body and mind. To make appli­ca­tions for ‘good’ a real­ity, we need indi­vid­u­als who can work together in a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary manner.

This ses­sion addresses this prob­lem by bring­ing together indi­vid­u­als from a cross-section of indus­tries and back­grounds who share the common pur­pose of ‘cre­at­ing for good’. In this ses­sion, we will together as a com­mu­nity dis­cuss and iden­tify oppor­tu­ni­ties, road­blocks, and res­o­lu­tions in get­ting to our goal of cre­at­ing VR/MR/AR for a ‘good’ purpose.

Figure 1. Attendees of all ages and back­grounds enjoy VR for Good at SIGGRAPH in 2017.

How we will ‘do good’

This ses­sion has two objec­tives:

Bring together indi­vid­u­als from a cross-section of indus­tries and back­grounds who want to use immer­sive real­i­ties for the bet­ter­ment of humanity.

Together, dis­cuss andideate what projects we can work on to make our dreams for good a reality.

The nature of the ses­sion is focused on inclu­siv­ity and diver­sity. If you are inter­ested in VR/MR/AR for good, we invite you to come. Your back­ground, edu­ca­tion level, and exper­tise in VR/MR/AR is wel­come. To create appli­ca­tions that better human­ity, all humans should be included in the con­ver­sa­tion, and all expe­ri­ences are nec­es­sary to form a com­plete pic­ture of how we achieve our goals together. To achieve these objec­tives, we will begin the ses­sion by defin­ing VR/MR/AR for ‘good’ with light­ning pre­sen­ta­tions on cur­rent projects (case stud­ies) that achieve this goal. Next, we invite a round table dis­cus­sion with all par­tic­i­pants. This will pro­vide an oppor­tu­nity to express con­cerns around the cur­rent state of affairs, or announce oppor­tu­ni­ties. During the dis­cus­sion, we will be graph­i­cally record­ing (see exam­ple) the con­ver­sa­tion into images and text on a white­board. This doc­u­men­ta­tion process will enable par­tic­i­pants to fully engage in the dis­cus­sion. Out of the dis­cus­sion, we will iden­tify project ideas that we can expand on imme­di­ately. The room will be pro­vided with white­boards and paper pro­to­typ­ing tools. This final part of the ses­sion is intended to ener­gize and inspire par­tic­i­pants to explore work­ing together, with a pos­si­ble out­come of cre­at­ing a formal collaboration.

After our time together is con­cluded, we will follow up within one week with par­tic­i­pants who con­sented to being included in a data­base. This follow up will present the data­base, will include doc­u­men­ta­tion of the graphic record­ing of the ses­sion and notes, and any action items we gen­er­ate from our time together.

Speakers and pre­sen­ta­tions to be deter­mined; full list coming soon.

Participant benefits

In com­ply­ing with the SIGGRAPH 2018 Birds of a Feather pro­gram, this ses­sion will be free for all reg­is­tered SIGGRAPH atten­dees, apart from the Exhibits Only reg­is­tra­tion cat­e­gory. Participants can expect to:

Network: meet other like­minded indi­vid­u­als from around the world as poten­tial collaborators

Gain knowl­edge: dis­cover what is hap­pen­ing in var­i­ous fields, includ­ing research, and learn what it means to create VR/MR/AR for good